Authors Note: Hello everyone! This is my very first time publishing any story I have written so whatever feed back you all can give is very welcome. This is a story that I've sort of had in my head for quite a while and when I finally sat down and started writing it turned out a lot bigger than I thought. The Lord of the Rings series has been my favorite for a very long time, but unfortunately I have not ready the books so this will mostly be based on the movies. I'm not entirely sure if ill put the rest of the chapters of this up yet, or the squeal that I have planned. Also I do not own any of Tolkien's character or his story only my original characters. Hope you all enjoy!
Fire and Stone
Chapter One
Starting From the Very Beginning
How do you put a lifetime into words? How can you describe the sorrow, joy, valor, and sacrifice that have touched one's life? She asked herself these questions as she stared down at the blank stack of parchment and quill that sat in front of her on the desk. She knew the task that she had to complete was important, but actually sitting down to complete it was turning out to be a much greater challenge than she had thought.
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed anyone approaching her until she felt a small hand tugging on her sleeve. She looked down into the small tired face of her daughter, who was staring up at her. "Mother I can't sleep," the small child said frowning, "Will you tell me a story?" She stooped down, picked the small child up, and sat her on her lap, "Which story would you like to hear tonight, dearest, Perhaps about the great warrior Glorfindel or how about the founding of the great fortress of Kahzad-dum?" The child shook her head indignantly. The mother chuckled and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her daughter's small pointed ear. "Which story would you like to hear then my dear?" The small child thought for a moment then her fair face lit up. "I want to hear your story mother! Tell me about your adventures."
The mother looked into her daughter's hopeful face and found that she could not say no. "As you wish my dearest, but you must promise to try and get some rest after." The child beamed at her mother, "I promise!" she said. Cradling her daughter in her arm she took her back to her bedroom to put her into bed. After the small girl was tucked in she sat in a chair by the bed side to begin her tale. "The world I was born into was very different from the one you know my dearest Vallaria. I was born Freya Aeducan daughter of the guard captain of the greatest kingdom in Middle Earth, Erebor. Long ago it was a prosperous kingdom filled with riches and ruled by Thror, King under the mountain and mightiest of the dwarf lords. Built into the single peek of the lonely mountain Erebor was a fortress like no other. Dug deep into the mountain…" She stopped looking at her daughter who had somehow already nodded off. "Not even past the beginning of the story and she's already asleep" Freya chucked to herself.
She carefully leaned down to press a kiss to her child's fore head and took the candle from her bedside. Freya walked towards the door and with one last look at her sleeping child she smiled to herself and headed down the hall and back to her desk. She sat thinking of her daughter.
One day Vallaria would be old enough to hear the entire story and one day it would be very important that she did. Freya looked down at the stack of parchment. Not only would she be writing down the history for her people but her life story so that someday her daughter would understand a great many things that she would no doubt start to question very soon. "I suppose the best place to start is the very beginning," she mumbled to herself. She picked up the quill dipped it in the ink well and began to write.
Freya was born into one of the oldest and noblest of dwarven houses, the great house Aeducan. Though the Aeducan's where once nobility in recent generations they had become more of a clan of warriors and defenders of Erebor. Freya's grandfather and father both had taken up the mantle of guard captain of the royal guard. Her grandfather would even go on to be one of the top advisors for King Thror after his retirement from the guard.
Her earliest memories where of Erebor and it's great stone walls, she could remember as a child staring up at the massive vaulted stone ceiling and feeling a great sense of safety and comfort. Erebor was her home and had been her family's home for generations. The certainty that her home would always be there was instilled in Freya from birth. Their home lay deep inside the great fortress in the noble quarter of the city, where Freya lived with her mother, father, and grandfather.
Her mother Idunn was a strong, plump, but beautiful woman with a kind face, deep auburn locks and a twinkle of mischief in her brown eyes. Her mother was what some would call a little eccentric. She was a very doting mother who showered Freya with affection, but she had a bit of a rebellious streak and a pension for being a jokester, to the dismay of her husband. Idunn insisted that her daughter choose her own path in life whether it be that of a warrior or the traditional path that most young dwarven women take. Initially this was something that greatly upset Freya's father, Turin who wanted to marry Freya off but it became clear very soon the she had far too much of her mother in her for that to happen. Turin finally came to accept this after Freya began to show an interest in combat training from a very young age. Though it was not unheard of for female dwarves to become warriors, it was rare. Regardless Freya's father saw this as an opportunity to have the proverbial "son" that he never had and began training Freya when she was just a child.
Turin Aeducan was very stern, strict man; with very dark hair and beard, olive green eyes and a dry sense of humor. He also had a love of rules and order, something he put into raising a child. Though his duties as captain of the royal guard kept him away from home most of the time when Freya did see her father is was when he was training her. Though he did love is daughter and family Turin put his duties first something that he would unknowing pass to his daughter.
Though it was her father that taught Freya everything she knew about combat, it was her grandfather that taught her the most about life. Dorin Aeducan was the wisest person Freya had ever known, a trait that did not go unnoticed. After serving as captain of the royal guard for many years Dorin was forced to retire after a crippling knee injury and soon after was asked to be one of the king's official advisers. Where his son was cold and calculating, Dorin was compassionate and wise and like Freya's mother he doted on her. He also nurtured the notion of Freya being a warrior and gave Freya her first sword.
Freya starred down at the three pages of parchment she had filled. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself to think of the family she had lost. For decades the grief had been far too near, but she had never forgotten them, the way her mother's cheeks would flush red when she laughed, or how her father would lift her onto his shoulders to get better look at the kites the people of vale would fly during the summer, or how her grandfather would sit her on his knee and tell her tales of great heroes and battles. While she had lost much that fateful day the memory of her family and home was what had given her the resolve to keep moving forward and never abandon hope all of these years. To tell this tale correctly however she would have to start from the very beginning, the day she met the man who change her life forever.
It was a day just like any other for Freya. It was mid-morning and Freya sat at a desk in the study of their home starring out the window at the sunlight seeping through into the rather dreary study. She could vaguely hear her mother droning on about the first dwarven kingdom sounding almost as bored as Freya was, though her mother would never admit it. All Freya could think of was her combat lessons later that day and trying out the new shield charge that her father had taught her on some of the new recruits.
Freya had taken to her combat training like a fish to water ever since she was very young. It had become her one true passion in life. While other dwarven girls her age were practicing intricate braiding techniques or chasing after young warriors, Freya was far too busy becoming a warrior herself. Most days she spent the early morning with her mother and her lessons about various things history, languages, geography, which all bored Freya thoroughly, though occasionally her mother would throw in some lessons on battle strategy which were always her favorite. It was after her lessons in the mid-afternoon that Freya looked forward too every day. This was when she would meet her father at the guard tower and train until twilight. In recent years her father had even let her help train the new recruits, as Freya was skilled enough to lead her own platoon if she were old enough to join the guard, but as she was only twenty, which was quite young for a dwarf, she would have to wait. Though in just four years she would be considered an adult and could be accepted, a day Freya waited for anxiously.
Still gazing out the window she was finally snapped out of her trance by her mother's voice. "Freya my dearest if I have to ask you again the names of the original dwarven clans then I might just have to keep you here for the rest of the day." Freya's eyes went wide and her head snapped immediately to her mother who was leaning over the desk with a mischievous look in her eye. Her mother now had her full and undivided attention, no doubt exactly what she wanted, and Freya knew better then to test her mother, she was not one to be trifled with. "Oh mother, please don't! You know I can't miss training with father," Freya pleaded. Idunn smile in an unnervingly sweet manner and said in her sweetest voice "Then my sweet daughter answer my question." This did not fool Freya though, she could tell that her mother had become just as frustrated with the lessons as she and was ready to be finished for the day. Freya though for a moment and then it came to her, "There were seven, the Longbeards, Blacklocks, Stonefoots… Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Broadbeams, and Firebeards." A look of relief passed over her mother face and she grabbed her daughter over the desk and squeezed her into a hug. "Wonderful dearie, for a moment I thought I was doomed to be the mother of an uneducated heathen, but alas my sweet daughter does pay attention to the lesson I work so hard to teach her," her mother said in a dramatic voice. Though Freya was fairly certain she should be insulted she found her mother's antics more amusing than anything. She let out a chuckle while sill caught in her mother embrace, "does this mean that we are finished for the day mother"? Her mother finally let her go, "Yes my sweet dove, fly and be free. And show those new recruits what the Aeducan women are made of," she said with a wink.
Freya grinned widely back at her mother and quickly pressed a kiss to her cheek and hurriedly stood up from the desk and ran from the study to her room down the stone hallway. Excitement flooded her veins as she changed quickly from the blue and black layered dress she had been wearing into her training clothes. She slipped on leather trousers, a thin tunic, a leather bodice, followed by her iron breast plate; her father had always believed there was no point training without your amour on, as you would become unaccustomed to the weight.
Freya turned to the mirror on top of her dresser and began to tie her long auburn hair into a braid down her back to get it out of the way while she was training. She pause a moment and gazed back at her reflection. She had a pleasant face, though she was not the most beautiful of dwarven maidens and lacked the magnificent beards that most of her kind did, but she had a kind of simple attractiveness to her. Freya had never really paid that much attention to her appearance, she didn't mind the freckles that dotted most of her skin and never really paid mind the small amount of facial hair that she did have, which was just a small amount of fuzz that ran along the upper half her jaw. She resembled her mother more than her father with the exception of her olive green eyes that she had inherited from her father and like her mother she was no small frail woman. She had a fairly curvaceous build as most dwarven women did, but remained fairly lean from all of the training she did. Freya turned from her dresser and continued to get ready.
Stopping in the middle of her fairly spacious room she glanced around quickly looking for her leather boots. "Where in Middle Earth did I put those blasted boots," she muttered to herself stooping to look under her bed, only to find nothing, but dust. She opened the heavy metal trunk at the end of her bed were she kept her weapons. Maybe they would be in there. As she sifted through the various arms that she kept in the trunk Freya became more and more frustrated. Tossing a mace half way across the room, where it landed with a loud clack, she muttered another cruse under her breath and continued to look not noticing someone entering her room. As she threw an ax that had been in her way in a random direction she heard someone clear their throat. "It is not very lady like to throw weapons around your room Freya." She turned to find her grandfather leaning against her door frame with Freya's boots in her hands. "You should not leave boots lying in the middle of the hallway young lady" Dorin told her with a faux stern look.
Freya sighed and smiles at her grandfather, "Ah! That is where those bloody boots were hiding. I would be lost without you grandfather, you have my thanks." He gave her a fond smile and replied, "Remember my dear, to know the road ahead ask those coming back." With that he walked over and handed Freya her books, pat her on the head and headed back down the hallway. Freya starred after him for a moment confused and shook her head. She knew her grandfather was a very wise man but some of his advice was just baffling. Freya took her boots from her, slipped them on, and left quickly down the hall and out the large stone doors of their home.
Freya had always found great pleasure in simply walking around Erebor, the city's beauty was unmatched by any place she had ever been. As she walked to the guard tower to meet her father Freya could not help but admire the glorious city built by her ancestors. The way the polished green stone shone in the light of the great torches lit everywhere, the golden inlays that sparkled from the massive wall and arch ways, even the people of Erebor were a site to behold, the dwarven ladies with their gowns made from the finest silks and velvets, their hair woven in intricate braided styles, and the men with their fine tunics and amour made by the finest smiths in Erebor, who were known as some of the most skilled craftsmen in all of Middle Earth. It was not just the splendor of Erebor that made the city so incredible but its size. Its great hall set deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain, Freya sometimes felt like to massive fortress had no end to it. She had lived there her entire life and had still not seen the entire city though it was not for lack of trying, she explored as often as she could.
In what seemed like no time at all Freya had reached the guards tower.
Review and any comments are welcome and for those of you who are fans of the Dragon Age series I did borrow the name Aeducan from that. Thanks for reading!